Hey everyone, and welcome to my professional website! This personal blog will update inquisitive minds about what I have been up to in the last year, but moving forward this site will become an archive of my life and work as a composer, audio developer, researcher, and avid gamer. You can already browse through my latest media, but I plan to add blog posts and expert tutorials related to topics ranging from Max/MSP to Unreal Engine Blueprint programming, as well as an extensive bibliography of my own favorite tools and resources.
2022 was a year of mental rest, unexpected adventures, and new companionships. My roommates and I were finally able to enjoy the mostly-post-COVID world and took two California road trips – one to the wedding of close friends up in Cambria, and another to the Bay Area where my significant other and I went to Porter Robinson’s electronic music festival Second Sky. The festival helped me discover my new favorite musical artist of 2022, Magdalena Bay. If you have not heard their music yet, go listen to “Secrets (Your Fire)” as soon as you are done reading this.
The most surprising part of 2022 was taking care of my new best friend. Kiyo, a four-year-old Morkie (dog), now has to put up with my unceasing need to deck him out in all the latest fashions (Image: Best pic of da boi). All-in-all, life in SoCal has been pretty cozy (as long as it does not get below 60℉).
I have taken a grand pause from composition, production, and guitar since I received my PhD in Digital Composition from the University of California, Riverside in the summer of 2021. Music is still the cornerstone of my career, but after spending more than ten years in music academia I needed some time and distance to remind myself what it feels like to be excited by unexplored harmonic soundscapes or groovy motivic structures.
While I replenish my creative juices, I have been working as a web developer for my sister Tori’s non-profit Digital A11ies. That’s right – I taught myself full-stack development over the past twelve months (nudge nudge wink wink in case any of my fellow artists want some help with their own personal websites!). I have frequently reached out to Tori, a digital accessibility specialist, to discuss how to make my audio software more digitally accessible, and in January she leveraged my interest in user experience to code a complex component for the online digest The Unconventional. What initially started as a quick gig has now turned into my day job, and now I can even add interactive web-based audio into my toolbox.
Don’t fret, I haven’t been completely dormant! – there are still plenty of projects on the assembly line. After a year-and-a-half of extensive R&D, I will soon be announcing specifics about my music software company’s (Yggi Audio) first product. Sometime in the middle of 2023 I will be launching a YouTube channel dedicated to scholarly-yet-irreverent rants about the plethora of research areas I’m obsessed with these days. Lastly, you can expect new music on the way after more than two years of debilitating writer’s block. I recently purchased Keith McMillen Instruments’ QuNeo drum pad and it has unlocked a steady stream of new ideas that I haven’t experienced since my early guitar years.
It hasn’t been the smoothest ride to get back to this level of productivity, but more on that in a future post. Be sure to follow me on all the relevant social networks to see where this momentum takes me in 2023. Until then, peace! ☮